J. B. Danquah The Inventor & Founder for Dummies (v2)!

“…No, J. B. Danquah and the UGCC did not invent or found any of those ideas, facilities, institutions, or systems…No, President Akufo-Addo, not Kwame Nkrumah memorial of anything from your Kyebi NPP, sir. Give that one to your dear friend Mr. Paul Dundes Wolfowitz and have him take it to the Confederate Danquah graveyard with his bloodied plaque that displays 155,000 dead from the US-Iraq War…A confederation and pseudo-federal government run out of Kyebi…pretty well suited J. B. Danquah….Hence the sundry destructive energies and acts recorded in Danquah’s solitary corner in the public annals, from Apedwa-Amantoo Miensa…to Accra…No, sir!…J. B. Danquah and the UGCC lobbying group could never have founded the modern Ghana Nation-State out of the ashes of the Gold Coast..Kwame Nkrumah did!….”, (Prof Lungu, 21 September, 2017).

We noted that the NDC party and their leaders merely re-discover Kwame Nkrumah after they have been kicked out of power. (Mr. Mahama demonstrated that fact, again, today).

And from where we sit, it smacks of political malpractice and gross absent-mindedness for any so-called Nkrumahist to tell the world that they are surprised about the latest Akufu-Addo and Kyebi NPP theatrics with their so-called Kwame Nkrumah memorial day.

Where have you been the last 15 years?

Is it not the same Akufo Addo and his Kyebi-branch of the NPP, while out of power, who demanded apologies from Kwame Nkrumahists for detaining J. B. Danquah under lawful authority of the CPP government in the 1960s?

The erroneous argument frequently advanced by the Kyebi branch of the NPP is that because (1) Kwame Nkrumah’s government detained J. B. Danquah under suspicion of treason, (2) that many other individuals were also detained during the same turbulent period after independence as the western powers attempted to control the destiny and interests of Ghana, and (3) J. B. Danquah died in the Nsawam prison, that Kwame Nkrumah is one of the worst, most murderous dictator that ever lived on this planet.

In case the reader does not know, J. B Danquah was born 18 December, 1895. He died 4 February, 1965, at the age of 70. The diagnosis by government physicians indicated death from heart attack.

So maybe, this 21 September, 2017, the Kyebi-branch of the NPP want to inform us the percentage of Ghanaians who get to that “ripe” age of 70 even today, in 2017, with all the modern advances in medicine, care, transportation, housing, etc., and better educated citizenry to boot.

But, here is the crucial point: After all their talk, show, and prostrations to foreign powers and entities, among them Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, (the former Bush Deputy Secretary of Defense who had a brief stint as President of the World Bank), non of the Kyebi men (yes, they are all men) from the NPP can point to a single person Kwame Nkrumah caused to be executed or sent to contrived war he created.

No, President Akufo Addo, not Kwame Nkrumah memorial of anything from your Kyebi-branch of the NPP, sir. Give that one to your dear friend Mr. Paul Wolfowitz and have him take it to the Confederate Danquah graveyard, together with his bloodied plaque that displays 155,000 US-Iraqi War dead.

The 21st century records are clear!

“Paul Wolfowitz insisted that Saddam was tied to the first World Trade Center attack”, even before the first evidence had been recorded.

There was not, and has never been, a single evidence on that score!

Paul D. Wolfowitz, was the chief architect of the US-Iraq war that in the 8 years between 2003 and 2011 caused the death of nearly 5,000 US servicemen, in addition to 318 nationals from other countries including the UK. Add to that 32,222 wounded US servicemen. Then, add the more than 150,000 dead Iraqi civilians.

Another insight came from Thomas Hargrove. Hargove notes that “nearly a fifth of the fatalities among U.S. troops” were African American, being “the highest cost African Americans have paid in any of America’s wars if the trend continues….(and)… There are also indications that Hispanics may be over-represented among the war dead.”

That is the record of the Kyebi-NPP-branch-befriended, Mr. Paul D. Wolfowitz.

And so, while at the World Bank, with his signature Iraq war dead in the tens of thousands now in his rear view mirror, it was that same Kyebi branch of the NPP that invited the same Paul D. Wolfowitz to Ghana in 2006 to lay a memorial wreath on J. B. Danquah’s grave.

What an abomination for Africa, for Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana, however the Kyebi branch of the NPP may want to take it!

And while they chilled with the murderous Wolfowitz, they at one time had the gall and audacity to demand an apology from Ghanaians for actions Kwame Nkrumah’s government took to protect the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ghana, more than 50 years removed from those events.

There was not, and they have never pointed to a single evidence showing that Kwame Nkrumah caused a single war, that Kwame Nkrumah caused a single Ghanaian to be executed while he was the leader of Ghana.

But there they were (see Wolfowitz in the above photo), doing the “Wolfowitz-Tale-and-Dance”.

They, Akufo Addo’s and his Kyebi branch of the NPP!

But, surely, Paul D. Wolfowitz did not come to Ghana to promote democracy, fight corruption, or build anything of substance for Ghanaians!

No, on the contrary: Paul Wolfowitz, the dear friend of the Kyebi NPP who helped to quickly destroy Iraqi civilization thousands of years older than the American in our own lifetimes, was actually in Ghana for photo-ops, and to help the Kufour government take even more from the people.

Or, did we forget how many newly-constructed housing units financed with loans from the World Bank Mr. Kuffour and the Kyebi NPP branch they took before they were kicked out of power by the People of Ghana the last time?

And so, with all that said in respect of contemporary events and the ahistorical policies of Mr. Akufo Addo, now thepresident of Ghana, we must continue from where we let off…..

As we said before, in all those ancient and modern civilizations built through servitude and wars that we spoke about earlier, the royal-born, the privileged, and the cunning professional (clergy, lawyers, and accountants, mostly), benefited greatly. As such, they generally had fewer reasons to challenge the political system, to speak truth to the power, to lead credible political struggles, even for “self-government” under the auspices of a colonial “protectorate”.

Not with speed, and not by any means necessary!

Thus, it was generally outsiders who always “rocked the boat” for improvements in human conditions and freedoms.

Modern economic theory, now wayward and without balance or conscience in Europe and America, mostly, prove what we now state about the royal-born, the privileged, and the cunning professional. Such was the case of royal-privileged-born J. B. Danquah who, in the 1950s-1960s, was still deeply entrenched in the colonial urban and economic life of the Gold Coast as a lawyer. J. B. Danquah therefore had no compelling, altruistic, (or should we say “patriotic” in Professor Gyampo-speak) motive to seek a radical change from “colonial servitude”, to “Sovereign Statedom”, merely for the benefit of the average Ghanaian, even if they came from Kyebi.

Not!

And the colonial officials knew that and respected him less, accordingly.

A confederation and pseudo-federal government run out of Kyebi, the old records show, pretty well suited J. B. Danquah, mightily!

Thus, the sundry destructive energies and acts recorded in Danquah’s solitary corner in the public annals, from Apedwa-Amantoo Miensa, to Kyebi, to Accra, to the United States Library of Congress, to Embassies of foreign countries, to University libraries, and all places in-between. (See all our paper on J. B. Danquah).

To use a tired old phrase, needless to say, when J.B. Danquah was plying his profession in colonial Ghana under the auspices of the masters, those Grand Canals, Harbors, Urban Squares, Dams, Cities, Highways, Road, Bridges, Libraries, the Pyramids, and yes, Universities, even, all had been conceptualized and built in those Great Civilizations. And it was the same in all the minor civilizations such as existed in England where “royal” J. B. Danquah was supported 100% by taxes levied on the head of every Akyem Abuakwa native and on their goat, in the 1920s.

The records were, and still are available on/in cloths, parchment papers, manuscripts, books, microfiche, vinyl, tapes, DVDs, and now increasingly, digital internet-ready media on desktops, laptops, servers, and Clouds (as in Cloud Computing systems) of every type.

B. Danquah and the UGCC did not invent or found any of those ideas, facilities, institutions, or systems.

Not Legon!

Not Akosombo Dam!

Not Tema Harbor!

Not Bank of Ghana!

Surely not Ghana!

Rather, on the other side, in Pan-African-style, such was the case of Kwame Nkrumah who was born without all the pretentions of an urbane Ofori Attah-J. B. Danquah.

Nkrumah was so deeply entrenched in the vision of many a Great African (Marcus Garvey, W. E, DuBois, etc.), that even before he could fully complete his self-sponsored education in the United States and England in the 1940s, he was invited to the Gold Coast, to suspend his own education, to assist with the quest for self-government for the Gold Coast, by members of the then 3-month old UGCC.

As the records show, J. B. Danquah, the barrister, the attorney, the “Doyen of Gold Coast Politics”, was in fact the only principal member of the UGCC who did not contribute a single penny to fund Nkrumah’s travel back to Ghana in 1947 to assist the UGCC in a project they had little clue executing.

So, we’d expect that as an “outsider” with a background in US history, politics, actual work experience, even preaching, and with great knowledge of African heroes and of those from other regions and civilizations of the world, that Kwame Nkrumah would quickly see the sovereignty project as a struggle and quest for the speediest results and significant power to the center to counter every dis-orienting, confederate-colored centrifugal force that would come up against the Unitary and Independent Ghana he could envisioned for the benefit of all the People.

Political-economy teaches us that the tag of “newly independent” does not necessarily mean that your old colonial master suddenly loses all interests in their own “permanent interests” and development of their own country at your expense.

Or, that they will suddenly begin respecting you, or love you to death, unless you demand respect in words, action, and deeds.

Kwame Nkrumah gave them all that, and more!

Independence Now, he thundered to the masses!

FACT: More than anyone, Kwame Nkrumah stood for a vibrant Ghana, a new and modern African Nation strong enough to swiftly ease and remove the colonial masters’ access to the produce and markets of the old colony. The old masters saw in Kwame Nkrumah that same vision of a strong centralized government for the new country, and they respected Kwame Nkrumah for that.

That is part of the record as written in history, if we care to query history. If we cared to ask Mr. Victor Owusu, the NLM-UP organizer and orientation minister. If we cared to ask the BBC “witness” program!

Respect, after all, always goes to a principled enemy, than to an unprincipled friend who will never do what you would do, if they owned or controlled the football, the country; if we begged them to wear our shoes for a minute.

Confederate J. B. Danquah never stood for anything bigger than himself and Kyebi, and the British had little respect for that!

Every American college student who paid a little attention in “American History 101″ will tell you that a confederation has no chance supporting an agrarian economy, let alone an industrial and post-industrial, knowledge-based economy. As well, that same American student will tell you that the second best option that was adopted for the new state in North America, the federal system, continues to wreak havoc on the life chances of a large segment of the American population even as multitudes on other sides profit and still continue benefiting from servitude and slavery, racial politics, and wealth and gender inequities.

The foolish idea that there is no important role for a national government has now been rendered asunder, in multiple ways and on every type of platform.

Dear African reader, the history of Nigeria ought be instructive, today.

Having opted for a federal form of government in 1960, Nigerian politicians would be at the forefront of the group that strongly resisted the United Africa vision proposed by Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. Later, in 1967-1970, Nigeria, now with a”federal” system of government, would be plunged into a civil war that resulted in the death of nearly 2 million Nigerians, many from war-related diseases and starvation.

Yours truly was in primary school and remember the posters of diseased, malnourished, dead children and men, and burnt forests and fields.

No single Nigerian leader ever personified a united Nigerian state like Kwame Nkrumah did for Unitary Ghana.

And we all know the record, if we are even half objective.

Sadly, and not surprisingly, the Nigerian civil war was as well abetted by the subversive and deluded Ghanaian military junta that overthrew Kwame Nkrumah and called themselves the National Liberation Council (NLC), a name in virtual sync with the confederate National Liberation Movement (NLM) of J. B. Danquah-Victor Owuse-Kofi Abrefa Busia, etc. On many fronts, in Aburi Gardens, the NLC soldiers supported the idea of a confederation of states for Nigeria. So, in Murphy’s Law Fashion, they realized that great war and disaster for federal Nigerian.

B. Danquah and even a thousand members of the UGCC (there are no records indicating that there were even members of the UGCC in those numbers), could not have founded Ghana with that self-government, interest group lobby.

It took real political agitation, a plan, and willingness not to wait to be given ones own independence.

It was Kwame Nkrumah, who, working with the most diverse groups of Ghanaians numbering in the millions (workers and business owners; women and men; students and professional; from city to town; south to north; west to east, etc.), who demanded immediate independence for the Gold Coast and founded the Ghana Nation-State out of that Unitary Vision.

Kwame Nkrumah, the Pan-Africanist, the African “Development” Visionary, the Founder of the modern Ghana Nation-State, would never have invited bloodied-hand Paul D. Wolfowitz to Ghana to memorialize even the death of a rabies-infested.

To be continued…….

By Prof Lungu

NOTES/SOURCES:

(1) Cameron Duodu. Is there one “history” or are there several “histories”?

VISIT WWW.GHANAHERO.COM/VISIONS, FOR MORE INFORMATION: We invite every Ghanaian student to that website. Get your free copies of Ghana Development and Governance papers we’ve posted on that website. Mo’ coming soon.

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